


Roots in Red Soil

by WretchedArtifact



Series: Blossom/Bloom [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Magical Pregnancy, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Pampering, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:22:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22997644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WretchedArtifact/pseuds/WretchedArtifact
Summary: As Victor enters the third trimester of his impossible pregnancy, his plans to coach Yuuri through the skating season are dashed when his doctor orders him to reduce the amount of stress in his life.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: Blossom/Bloom [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615321
Comments: 7
Kudos: 97
Collections: Writing Rainbow Red





	Roots in Red Soil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soulstoned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulstoned/gifts).



> Written for the _Writing Rainbow: Red_ fic exchange! (It's like the algorithm knew there are three trimesters in a pregnancy...)

While Victor’s pregnancy couldn’t be called _typical_ by any stretch of the imagination, he’d been harboring a certain secret vision of how it would play out ever since he first learned the impossible truth. He wouldn’t let pregnancy slow him down in the slightest: he’d keep coaching Yuuri, of course, and accompany him to competitions, even if it meant staying backstage so the crowds couldn’t see his increasingly prominent and hard-to-obscure belly. The only competition he wouldn’t be able to attend was Four Continents: his C-section was scheduled for two weeks beforehand, and he knew he wouldn’t have recovered enough to travel by then. But he’d be fine in time for Worlds, and both he and the baby would be there to cheer Yuuri on as he fought for his final medal of the season.

With that lovely mental picture in mind, Victor wasn’t prepared at all when, early in his third trimester, his doctor Dmitri sat him down and said bluntly, “You need to scale back on your amount of daily activity.”

Victor was too surprised to say anything for a few seconds. Compared to the first thirty years of his life, Victor’s level of daily activity was downright minuscule. He wasn’t skating anymore, or doing long daily workouts; he was just going to the rink to coach Yuuri and doing ordinary things around the house. “But...why would I need to scale back?” Victor asked.

“You know as well as I do that we’re flying blind when it comes to this pregnancy,” Dmitri said. “We can’t rely on conventional standards when it comes to your health and the baby’s health. I’ve been talking to your OB-GYN, and we both agree that going forward, we should be approaching your pregnancy with the same caution we’d use with other types of high-risk pregnancies.”

Victor’s heart started to race with faint panic. He hadn’t expected such huge news today: his last few prenatal appointments were so routine and boring that he’d told Yuuri not to bother attending this one. Now he found himself desperately wishing that Yuuri were here, sitting next to him and holding his hand. “But I barely do anything already!” Victor protested.

“How many hours a day do you spend at the rink?” Dmitri asked skeptically.

As the competition season was rapidly approaching, Victor and Yuuri were at the rink at least four hours a day. “Just...a few hours,” Victor hedged. “And it’s not like I’m the one training. I’m just watching from the sidelines.”

Dmitri sighed. “Vitya, I know you,” he said. “You throw yourself into everything you do, no matter what it is. And maybe that’s fine, and I’m over-reacting, but the point is, we don’t know. Your blood pressure has gotten a little bit higher these last two weeks, and maybe that’s a normal fluctuation and it’ll go back down, or maybe it’s a warning sign of problems to come. Do you really want to take that risk?”

Victor’s hands moved instinctively to his belly. Of course he didn’t want to take any risks. He already adored his daughter—the active, kicking, wriggling manifestation of his and Yuuri’s love. He’d do anything for her. He’d give up anything.

But what about Yuuri? At 26, when most skaters were aging out of the sport, Yuuri’s skating was still strong and clean and reaching new heights of artistry. If Victor couldn’t coach him anymore, it might disrupt all the progress Yuuri had been making these last few months. And how was that fair? Yuuri hadn’t asked for any of this to happen. Victor was the one who had wished so fervently and longingly for a baby.

Dmitri leaned across his desk and gave Victor’s hand a little pat. He’d been Victor’s doctor for so long that he probably knew full well how much Victor’s mind was racing. “Go home and talk about it with your husband,” Dmitri said. “I’m certain you can find a way to make everything work.”

* * *

On the way home, Victor tried to psych himself up for the difficult conversation ahead. It would all be okay, of course—he and Yuuri would figure out how to manage this setback. They’d come up with some kind of alternate plan. This definitely didn’t mean that Yuuri’s skating season was over before it even started. Maybe Yakov could step in for Victor—or they could hire one of the assistant coaches at the rink—or—or—

When Victor opened the door to their apartment, he found Yuuri in the kitchen making dinner and Makkachin dozing peacefully on the couch. “Welcome home!” Yuuri called over the sound of a sizzling pan. “How was your appointment?”

“Oh,” Victor said, unwinding his scarf with shaking fingers. “Um, it was—”

His voice caught in his throat. He unexpectedly felt tears start to brim up in his eyes, and Yuuri glanced over at him and gave a start. “Vitya!” he said, turning off the stove and hurrying over to him. “What’s wrong?”

Yuuri’s face was growing pale, and Victor realized he must think something was wrong with the baby. “No, no, it’s fine, she’s fine,” Victor said. “It’s just—”

The traitorous tears in his eyes spilled over, and Yuuri moved in close and hugged him, one arm firm around his back. “Oh, Vitya,” Yuuri said, kissing his wet cheek. “Come sit down.”

Victor had never felt quite so ungainly as he did in that moment, settling his heavy, lopsided body onto the couch as tears streamed down his face. Yuuri sat next to him, pressing himself close to Victor’s side, and on the other side of the couch Makkachin lifted her head and made a low whining noise at the sight of Victor’s distress. She got to her feet and came over to him, licking the side of his face. “It’s okay,” Victor said, stroking her head. “I’m okay, I promise.”

He patted the couch cushion next to him, and Makkachin flopped down immediately and put her head in his lap. Her warm bulk was a comforting pressure against his side, and Victor found that being sandwiched between the two of them made him feel a little bit less adrift. He found Yuuri’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “What did Dima say?” Yuuri asked.

Victor told him Dmitri’s edict: that Victor should limit the amount of stress in his life, and try to avoid any activity more strenuous than light housework or dog-walking. “That’s pretty common, though, isn’t it?” Yuuri said. “When Yuuko had her triplets, she had to go on bed rest for over a month.”

“He wants me to stop coaching you,” Victor said. Just saying the words sent a new trickle of tears down his face. “He doesn’t want me to go to the rink, or travel to any of your competitions.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said. For a few terrible seconds he was silent, like he was having trouble internalizing Victor’s words, but then he quickly roused himself from his thoughts and hugged Victor close. “It’s okay,” Yuuri said, pressing another kiss to his tear-stained cheek. “It’s okay, Vitya. I told you when we first started training this summer that the baby would be our first priority. My skating’s not as important.”

“But it _is_ important,” Victor protested, wiping at his eyes. “You’ve been working so hard, and doing so well. I don’t want to be the reason you lose momentum.”

“Vitya, you know I’d retire tomorrow if you needed me to.”

“Oh, don’t you dare talk about retiring!” Victor exclaimed. He gave Yuuri an impassioned poke in the side. “I would never forgive myself if you cut your career short because of me.”

Yuuri sighed. He laid his hand gently on Victor’s belly, and below his touch, Victor felt their baby give a sleepy, almost imperceptible twitch. “Vitya,” Yuuri said, his voice unusually serious. “Do you trust me to know what’s best for myself?”

Victor’s spirits sank. He _did_ trust Yuuri to know what was best for himself, but he really, really didn’t want to accept that _retirement_ was the best option. “Of course I trust you,” Victor said. “But—”

Yuuri leaned in and quieted the end of that sentence with a soft kiss to Victor’s lips. “Let me think about what I want to do,” Yuuri said. “It’s my rest day tomorrow, and I’ve been looking forward to having a break all week. Let’s just spend tonight and tomorrow relaxing, like we usually do. I’ll do some thinking, and you can practice not stressing out about things.”

“I don’t know if I can stop,” Victor admitted.

Yuuri got an unexpectedly impish look in his eyes. He leaned in toward Victor, and this time when he kissed him, it was less soft and more suggestive.

“Then I guess I’ll have to figure out a way to distract you,” Yuuri said.

* * *

Before Victor’s pregnancy, back when he was doing double-duty as Yuuri’s coach and competitor, rest days were always his favorite days of the month. It was impossible to have a normal life when he was using up all his energy at the rink, and so rest days became blissful little islands of romance and relaxation. These days, _normal life_ looked different than it used to: Yuuri was the one worn out from training, while all of Victor’s aches and pains came from gestating a human life. But on rest days they could take the energy they had and focus it entirely on each other.

The first rule of rest days was that all phone alarms were turned off, so they could sleep in late. In reality, they didn’t actually sleep in _too_ late, because their internal clocks always woke them up at the usual time anyway. But just knowing they were _allowed_ to sleep in was satisfying enough. The morning after his doctor’s appointment, Victor woke up at 7:42, only twelve minutes past his normal wake-up time, and he knew if he burrowed his head into the pillow again, he could probably fall back asleep. But before he could, the gloomy memory of Yuuri’s disrupted season rose up in his mind again, and the worry it generated in him made going back to sleep impossible. Victor reached over to the nightstand and picked up his cell phone. There had to be something he could do. Maybe he could text Yakov about the possibility of taking Yuuri on, or ask for the schedules of the other assistant coaches at the rink, or—

“No,” came a sleepy voice from the pillow next to his. Yuuri’s arm snaked out of the covers and stole the phone out of Victor’s hand. “No worrying today, Vitya. Only relaxing.”

Clearly Yuuri’s internal clock was just as accurate as Victor’s. Victor stuck out his lower lip theatrically as Yuuri put the phone on his own nightstand, out of Victor’s reach. “I can relax while I’m on my phone,” Victor complained.

Yuuri shifted over in bed, pulling away some of the pillows that Victor always arranged, nest-like, to support his body while he slept. He plastered himself warmly to Victor’s back. “I can think of better ways to relax,” Yuuri said, kissing Victor’s shoulder. 

And while Victor _did_ love a nice, lazy morning of scrolling through his social media, he had to admit that it couldn’t compare to the feeling of Yuuri’s mouth as it explored Victor’s skin: quiet, lazy kisses traveling down his bicep to his wrist, skipping from his wrist to the hollow of his hip, and then lingering, soft, on the underside of his belly. The swell of it was pronounced enough now that when Yuuri lowered his head down to kiss the inside of Victor’s thigh, he completely disappeared from view. “I can’t see you anymore,” Victor said mournfully, even as a delicious shiver traveled up his spine.

Yuuri’s hands reached up to caress his firm belly. “Maybe that’s good,” he said, plucking a string of kisses along the crease of Victor’s thigh. “It makes everything I do a surprise.”

The first soft touch of Yuuri’s lips to the underside of his cock _did_ take Victor by surprise: it was gentle as a whisper, almost ticklish. Yuuri kissed his cock lightly like that, several times, each one landing on a different spot. It was impossible to predict where the next whisper of sensation would appear, and Victor felt a slow, anticipatory pleasure start to build up low in his groin. Then, after another gentle brush of the lips, Victor felt the firm, warm slide of Yuuri’s tongue along the base of his shaft, and an exquisite shudder rocked through him, making him feel somehow tense and relaxed at the same time. He put his hands on top of Yuuri’s on his belly. “I guess this is better than my phone,” Victor breathed.

He felt Yuuri’s laughing exhale against his leg, and then Yuuri’s mouth went more firmly to work: warm, sucking kisses up the stiffening length of Victor’s cock, a moment of gasp-inducing suction on the very tip, and then the hard slide of his tongue down the shaft. Victor loved surprises, and each new movement of Yuuri’s mouth was an unexpected revelation, until with surprising quickness Victor found his pleasure starting to key up dangerously high. “Y-Yuuri,” he said, squeezing Yuuri’s hands. “Maybe we should—do something that involves both of us, now—before—you make me—”

The words choked in his throat as he felt a sudden rush of silky warmth engulf his cock. Yuuri had swallowed him down entirely—so deep that just the thought of what Yuuri’s face must look like right now made Victor moan. “That’s—not what I meant,” Victor said, his voice strained.

He shuddered through the delicious friction of Yuuri lifting his head back up and off and his cock. “You said something that involves both of us,” Yuuri said, his voice a little raspy. “And I like doing this.”

Then Victor’s cock was engulfed in heat again, and Victor could only lie back and clutch Yuuri’s hands and pant his way through the building waves of pleasure washing through him, each one stronger than the last. His toes curled as Yuuri started to bob his head smoothly up and down, a tight wet friction so perfect that it made Victor forget everything else. “Yuuri,” Victor moaned, barely aware that he was saying it. _“Yuuri—”_

Then he fell gasping from the peak of his pleasure, overwhelmed, and he felt the rougher friction of Yuuri’s hand stroke him through the last of it, the head of his cock still caught in the tight suction of Yuuri’s lips. When Victor was finally spent, he sagged back against his pillows, and he saw Yuuri’s head peek up over the heaving swell of his belly. His expression was almost mischievous.

“Yuuri,” Victor said with petulant insistence. “Come here.”

He held out his arms, and Yuuri crawled up on the bed and tucked himself against Victor’s chest, his sleep-mussed hair tickling the underside of Victor’s chin. “Now I’ll do something for you,” Victor said.

“No,” Yuuri said, snuggling close. “Now you’ll go back to sleep, and I’ll go to the store so I can make us something very fattening for breakfast.”

Victor’s resolve wavered: _sleep_ and _breakfast_ both sounded very lovely to him just then. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” Victor asked.

He meant it rhetorically, but Yuuri lifted his head and kissed Victor on the cheek. “You dropped everything in your life to come support me,” Yuuri said seriously. “Just because I got drunk and asked you to.”

Yuuri’s face was slightly pink when he said it: he would forever be embarrassed about his behavior at the Sochi banquet, even though it ended up changing both of their lives for the better. “And now it’s my turn to support you,” Yuuri continued. “So go back to sleep.”

With that, he extracted himself from Victor’s arms and started tucking the pillows back into place around him. Victor pouted for a few moments, but once he was settled back on his side and surrounded by softness, he felt sleep tug easily at his eyelids.

He was out within moments.

* * *

When Victor woke up for the second time that day, it was to the quiet sound of cooking and Yuuri’s voice speaking in Japanese. He checked the clock—it was nearly 10:30—and then wiggled over to Yuuri’s side of the bed to steal back his own cell phone. As he got up to go through his normal morning routine, he peered out at Yuuri and saw he had his own phone to one ear and was talking to someone as he cooked. Victor’s understanding of Japanese was still pretty limited, but he could always tell who Yuuri was talking to just based on the tone of his voice. He used a slightly different tone for his parents versus Mari, or Minako versus Yuuko, and from the sound of it, he was definitely talking to Yuuko just then. Victor listened for a little bit, but he could only understand an isolated word here and there, and eventually he gave up and went to go take a shower.

When he emerged from the bathroom, clean and damp-haired, with a newly awake little sweetheart kicking energetically at his internal organs, he went back to the kitchen to find Yuuri still on the phone as he put the finishing touches on two delicious-smelling plates of _syrniki_. Victor was so consumed by sudden hunger that he didn’t wait for Yuuri to finish up his phone call: he sat down at the dining table and started shoving lush forkfuls into his mouth.

Yuuri watched him eat with a little smile on his face, listening to someone speak on the other end of the line. As soon it was his turn to speak again, Victor knew instantly that he was talking to Minako. They spoke for a few more minutes before ending the call, and as soon as he hung up, Yuuri picked up his own fork and started eating his diet-busting breakfast with a look of intense satisfaction.

“You’ve been popular today,” Victor observed.

“Mmm,” Yuuri said, too full of bliss to form words.

After breakfast, Yuuri settled Victor down on the couch, tucked pillows strategically around him to make him comfortable, and left him to catch up on the social media time he’d been denied earlier. Yuuri went into the bedroom, and Victor heard low talking again—another phone call. This time, he had no idea who Yuuri was talking to; Yuuri’s voice was unusually polite and deferential, as though he were talking to a stranger. The call went on for at least twenty minutes, and when Yuuri finally emerged, he looked a little tired. “Are you all right?” Victor asked, intensely curious.

“Yes,” Yuuri said, but he didn’t elaborate. “It’s probably as warm outside as it’s going to be today. Should we take Makkachin out for a walk?”

For the rest of their lazy day, Yuuri turned out to be very resourceful in making sure Victor didn’t have a chance to fret or stress about anything. Every time negative thoughts tried to creep into his head again, Yuuri would distract him somehow. He also took several more phone calls while Victor was otherwise occupied, including one with Nishigori that lasted so long that it encroached on dinnertime. “Okay, I _was_ going to cook for you,” Yuuri said, pressing the phone to his chest for a moment, “but this is taking awhile. You’re going to have to make it for both of us.”

“Make what?” Victor asked.

Yuuri’s eyes danced. “You’ll see,” he said.

Victor went into the kitchen and checked the fridge, and lo and behold, his sneaky Yuuri had gotten all of the ingredients necessary for _katsudon._ Victor gave a theatrical gasp. “Bunny, can you believe your papa?” he said, aiming his voice down at his belly. “He knows he’s only supposed to eat katsudon when he medals. I would be a very bad coach if I let him eat this now, during the off-season.”

Then, simultaneously, Victor’s stomach growled, and the baby gave what Victor could only interpret as a hungry kick. “Oh, but _you’ve_ never had katsudon before, have you, sweetheart?” Victor said. “That’s true. My poor little mouse! I would be a very bad papa if I didn’t let you try it.”

Content with his decision, Victor got out all the ingredients and started cooking. His katsudon was never as good as the kind Yuuri’s family made—the ingredients were slightly different between Japan and Russia, and there were little subtleties in the seasoning the Victor hadn’t mastered—but even so-so katsudon was delicious. The process was fairly involved, but Victor was practically finished by the time Yuuri finally got off the phone and came into the kitchen. “Ahh, it smells so good!” Yuuri said, hugging Victor from behind.

“You know, as your coach, I don’t approve of you eating katsudon outside of competitions,” Victor said sternly.

“And as my husband?”

Victor wilted. “I’ve been craving it for _months_ ,” he admitted.

Yuuri helped him with the finishing touches, and the two of them settled down at the dining room table with their steaming bowls. After the first few reverent bites, Victor felt an excited stir in his womb. “Oh!” he said, looking down. “I think she likes it!”

Yuuri leaned over to press his hand against Victor’s belly, and his face lit up as he felt the reverberation of her movements against his palm. “Of course she likes it,” Yuuri said proudly. “It’s the family recipe, after all.”

They didn’t talk much as they ate; their attention was dedicated mostly to enjoying the taste of the rare treat. But as they emptied their bowls, Victor started thinking again of the many phone calls Yuuri had made that day. “So,” Victor said, choosing his words carefully. “You said you’d use today to do some thinking about the future. But it seems like you’ve spent more time talking than thinking.”

Yuuri’s lips tilted in an embarrassed smile. “I did all my thinking last night, while you were asleep,” he said. “I just...couldn’t fall asleep until I had it all planned out in my head.”

Victor felt a prickle of sadness at the thought of Yuuri lying awake next to him, worrying and stressed while Victor slept. “No,” Yuuri said quickly, as if he could sense Victor’s shifting thoughts. “It’s okay. I’ve decided what I want to do.”

He reached out across the dining room table and held out his hands. Victor took them with trepidation. “I spoke to Dima on the phone,” Yuuri said.

“Wait, you did?” Victor said. He didn’t remember hearing _that._

 _“_ He was the very first person I called this morning,” Yuuri said. “I asked him if there was any way for him and your medical team to continue treating you if we moved back to Japan.”

Victor’s eyes widened. “And he said he could help us assemble a new team of doctors in Japan,” Yuuri said, “or we could offer your medical team a lot of money to relocate to Japan for three months.”

“Yuuri!” Victor exclaimed. “I _have_ a lot of money!”

The edge of Yuuri’s mouth twitched into a smile. “So once he said we might be able to do it, I started calling everyone at home,” he said. “Yuuko said I can have all the ice time I need at Ice Castle, and Nishigori and Minako said they would help me with my off-ice training. Nishigori thinks we can set up video cameras, too, so you’d be able to watch me skate at home and give your advice from there.”

A small lump rose up in Victor’s throat. “And Minako said she’d be happy to stand in as my temporary coach when I go to competitions,” Yuuri continued. “She was planning on attending most of them, anyway. And—”

He stopped. There was a strange, hesitant look on his face. “...And?” Victor asked, his voice a little watery.

Yuuri’s expression turned firmer. “And I called my skating federation and told them I wouldn’t be attending Nationals or Four Continents.”

 _“What?”_ Victor exclaimed. “Yuuri, you can’t just skip—”

“I know,” Yuuri said. “I know if I skip Nationals, they would be within their rights not to send me to Worlds. But I told them that Nationals fell too close to the due date for our baby.”

Victor’s brain froze and stuttered for a moment. “I mean, I didn’t mention that _you_ were having the baby,” Yuuri said quickly. “Just that...someone was having a baby, and it was ours. And I told them my skating in the Grand Prix series would prove that I’m still their best candidate for Worlds.”

Yuuri had just laid so many things in front of Victor that Victor’s mind was whirling. Yuuri squeezed Victor’s hands, looking hesitant again. “So...that’s my plan,” Yuuri said. “What do you think?”

In the dream Victor had, the night he conceived, he had seen an image of the future: their little family, living together in Hasetsu. Victor loved Hasetsu—loved Yuuri’s family and friends—loved Ice Castle and the onsen and the beach with its crying gulls. They hadn’t moved there at the start of summer because Victor wanted to keep Dmitri as his doctor, but if Dmitri was willing to take a working holiday to Japan, maybe that image of the future could come true.

Victor stood up from the dining table and pulled a surprised Yuuri out of his chair to hug him. “It’s perfect,” Victor said, clutching him tightly. “Yuuri, it’s _perfect._ _”_

Yuuri wrapped his arms around Victor with a relieved laugh. “It’s definitely not perfect,” Yuuri said. “But...I think it’ll work.”

“Of course it will!” Victor said. “I’ll get everything set up, I can—”

Yuuri pulled back slightly so he could cup Victor’s face with one hand. “You can _relax_ ,” Yuuri said gently. “Like Dima said. I’ll take care of it.”

For a second, Victor really, _really_ wanted to protest. But he felt the faint, restless movement of the baby inside his womb, and he made himself take a deep, calming breath.

“We’ll do it together,” Victor said. “In a very calm, stress-free way.”

Yuuri smiled. “Deal,” he said.


End file.
